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Disillusionment is common to most of us involved in the teaching profession. We all deal with it at one point or another. Here’s the general path many of us take:

You major in education because you want to change the world

You realize that in order to teach, you need a find a job

You go through disappointing interview after disappointing interview and are told if you had more experience, you would be perfect for the job

You get frustrated that the only way to get experience is to get the job they won’t give you because you don’t have experience

Some school district that was not your first choice offers you a chance…finally

You take the job because it may be the only chance you get

You sign your contract and start to get excited

Then you show up…

Things are not as they were presented to you in the interview

You only have 30 minutes for lunch

That storage closet where you stored all of your new classroom supplies you bought was cleared out last weekend to store outdated textbooks…and your stuff disappeared

You get bus duty from 7-8am and from 3:30 to 5pm twice a week

Oh, and faculty meetings are held in your classroom every week

So are the make-up faculty meetings for those who missed the first one

And the make-up-make-up faculty meetings for those who missed the first two

Your classes are overfilled, but the school has put in a requisition for new desks and money should be available shortly after the new budget is approved September 1st

And while you are dealing with all of this, you are expected to teach children who would rather be home playing video games and eating bon bons. They were texting all summer long, and no dumb teacher is going to tell them no.

Oh wait, I’m sure I’m the only one any of this has ever happened to.

So after all of this, it’s no wonder so many new teachers run to Google searching for “I hate teaching” and “how to control kids in class” and other such terms. I know because these things drive people to my blog every fall. So what do you do? You have a few options:

Quit in the middle of the first month of your teachingcareer – This doesn’t bode well for your future career, even if you leave teaching. You either have to hide that job on your resume or admit that you bailed even before the first grading period was over.

Tough it out exploring other options the rest of the school year – This isn’t fair to you or the kids. No sense prolonging the inevitable and making the students suffer through an entire school year living with one of the most dispassionate people on campus.

Figure out how the great teachers do it – I like this option the best, so we’ll explore it more in-depth.

I recorded my classesI listened to what I said, how I said it, what the reaction was, and how much background noise was going on in the classroom. Using these recordings…

I identified problem areasI noticed when some things didn’t go the way I expected and sought out corrective solutions. I went back to some of my mentors and had new questions to ask them. And, I also sought out answers on my own…

I researched solutionsAlong with asking all sorts of questions from all sorts of people, I found books. Nowadays, many people just run to Google to search for the solutions to these problems. Or Facebook. Or Twitter. In all odds, this is how you came across this site!

Ultimately, it boils down to whether you will be reactive or proactive. Whether you will take charge or play the role of victim. Here’s the takeaway: Millions of people have taught kids and done so exceptionally well. You can too, it’s a matter of whether you will seek out the solutions that are available. My recommendation: Stick with it!

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Comments

The Edudicatorsays:

September 4, 2012 at 3:39 am

I’m always shocked every year by the number of new teachers who want to quit in the first week. After all the hard work to get qualified and get a job, no one would give up easily, so the fact that it happens so much speaks volumes. I recently wrote posts for new teachers about what you should and shouldn’t be worrying about at this link: <a href="http://theedudicator.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/NQT">The Edudicator – NQT tag</a>